I also believe in communication

Our company, I may have suggested some posts back, is having some issues, whose seriousness or lack thereof I’ll decline to comment on specifically; it’s way outside of my knowledge. But what has been interesting is the flurry of communications and meetings and reassurances and invitations for questioning from management, which yesterday annoyed me a little more than they ordinarily would because of our mag’s deadline and my squandering of time this past little while, when I’ve been dreaming of cottages and family and rural outdoor living and any number of things, actually, that aren’t the dramatically listing and tanking industries I’m being paid to study.

So as I was sitting there being annoyed in a (lunchtime, with no food) please-don't-do-what-all-those-guys-just-did meeting, I suddenly hit on a cure for being annoyed in such situations; playing mental spin the bottle for all the other people in the room. Randomly choosing two meeting participants and imagining what they’d look and sound like getting ridiculously into each other – erupting across the table holding raging boners or erupting out of their clothes. It was so awesome I had to keep struggling not to burst into hoots of uncontrollable laughter - no judgement on my colleagues’ humour value as sexual beings but you do get some frightfully unlikely combinations in there – and before I knew it the meeting was finished and I was in a good mood. The only lingering annoyance is not having thought of the measure years before to make conferences, lectures, and church services move along faster.

And if you hadn’t thought of it either, dear reader, there it is – my gift to you.

Whaaaaaa?tsing Matilda

Strange to have two Daddy-age Australian men who have never been to Europe before staying with us.

They're both terrific, much to my relief; that nervousness I wrote about just got nervouser as yesterday wore on, evolving into stomach-churning at the aeroport. But they're quite disarming and the F-word's dad has already touched my heart by reminding me of my dad, which is a touch incestuous in its implications, though nowhere near as bad as a friend's girlfriend who keeps insisting the F-word looks like Adriano Celentano, and he doesn't, right, because Elvis looks like Adriano Celentano, and I'm not boinking my brother. Stupid woman.

Anyways, it's strange to have the Australians staying with us because it's strange to be imagining what Europe looks like in their eyes - it's an experience of Europe that's completely outside of my experience, since my parents did most of their growing up here. It's also strange to realize how far the F-word is compensating for his natural accent when he speaks to me and most other people; I've already noticed he sounds different when he's phoning home, but now that I'm listening to non-expat Australians talk I realize I only understand 85% of what they're talking about.

There will be a learning curve even in moving back to Anglophonia, it seems.

That pasta gave me herpes

So the F-word’s dad is arriving this evening, and I believe I mentioned on Friday I was a bit nervous. Last night I was boiling some pasta, some darling little witches’ hats the F-word constructed that are so good at scooping up a light brothy sauce, and forgot their efficient cupping action whilst trying to eat one to see if it was cooked. The boiling water therein dinged my lower lip, hurting like hell and now – well, it doesn’t hurt anymore, but there’s a small blister, which makes me look like I’ve got a herpes sore.

There are a few achievements in my life that I’m really proud of. One is grad school, another is functional polyglottism, and the third is having made it through three decades and vast tracts of men without getting herpes. And now the F-word’s father is visiting, and he’s going to see this little blister on my lip, and he’s not going to know who awesomely, incredibly herpes-free I am.

C’est la vie.